American families fled the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez yesterday after suspected drug cartel hit men gunned down three people who worked at the U.S. consulate.

Officials pulled their families out of the world's most dangerous city after consulate employee Lesley Enriquez, 35, and her husband Arthur Redelfs were found with multiple bullet wounds to the head and neck after a hit-and-run shooting.

Their seven-month-old baby was found crying in the back of their car and was being cared for by Mexican social services before being handed to relatives.

Eight FBI agents have been sent to the border city to join the hunt for the killers.

Gunned down: A police officer cradles the couple's at the time one-year-old daughter after she was orphaned in the Ciudad Juarez shooting in April of 2010

Operation: Hernandez was in charge of the armed enforcement wing of the Juarez Drug Cartel, which had formed an alliance with the Barrio Azteca drug gang that operated in Texas and Mexico

President Barack Obama said he was 'deeply saddened and outraged' by the killings and added that the U.S. would work tirelessly to bring those responsible to justice.

The US state department said the killings underscored the 'severe and
significant danger' Mexico represents to the United States.

The gunmen are suspected of belonging to a gang of hit men tied to the Juarez drug cartel.

Last night there was speculation that the recent extradition to America of several Mexican drug barons may have been behind the murders of Ms Enriquez and her husband as they drove away from a children's birthday party.

The
deaths come during a surge in bloodshed along Mexico's border with
Texas and deal a significant blow to the U.S's ongoing battle to fight
the border drugs trade.

Killed: Hernandez confessed to ordering the murder of U.S. consulate employee Arthur Redelfs, 34, who was killed along with his wife Lesley Enriquez

U.S. government employees in Ciudad Juarez and five other consulates in
northern Mexico have been told to send family members out of the
country over concerns about rising drug violence.

The consulate in Juarez has been temporarily closed after the killings.

The U.S. has 485 locally engaged in Mexico and its operations in Ciudad Juarez is the largest operation in the world.

The three victims were killed in drive-by shootings in two separate attacks on Saturday afternoon.

The body of the third victim, Jorge Alberto Salcido
Ceniceros, 37, was found in his car in another part of Ciudad Juarez.

His two children, aged four and seven, were also wounded in the
shooting and are being treated in hospital.

U.S. citizens are
also being told to avoid unnecessary travel in the Mexican states of
Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua.

Fred
Lash, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said the three people
had been at the same party before the attacks. It is unclear if they
were specifically targeted.

'It could be a mistaken identity, it could be that they were targeted;
we don't know at this point,' special agent Andrea Simmons, a spokesman
for the FBI's El Paso, Texas, office said.

A statement from the White House said: 'President Obama extends his condolences to the families and condemns these attacks on consular and diplomatic personnel serving at our foreign missions.

'In concert with Mexican authorities, we will work tirelessly to bring their killers to justice.'

Drug violence: Staff at the U.S. consulate gather outside the building in Ciudad Juarez after two fatal drive-by shootings

Spot checks: Military personnel inspect cars at the U.S. border crossing in the Mexican city of Juarez

Mexico is battling with a drug war that has seen some 18,000 people killed since 2006.

Ciudad Juarez is a major area of conflict between Mexican drug cartels over trafficking routes to the U.S. More than 2,600 people were murdered there in drug-related violence last year.

U.S. officials briefly closed the consulate in Reynosa after an outbreak of violence, which Mexican authorities have blamed on the breaking of an alliance between two drug gangs.

President Felipe Calderon said he 'expresses his indignation' and 'his sincerest condolences to the families of the victims'.

The bodies of men shot dead during running gunfights between rival drug gangs on the streets of Acapulco In Mexico. At least 35 people were shot dead during the confrontations this weekend alone

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: 'These appalling assaults on members of our own State Department family are, sadly, part of a growing tragedy besetting many communities in Mexico.

'They underscore the imperative of our continued commitment to work closely with the government of President Calderon to cripple the influence of trafficking organisations at work in Mexico.

'This is a responsibility we must shoulder together.'

It comes after 13 people were killed in an outbreak of drug-related violence in the southern Mexican resort of Acapulco.

Acapulco, one of the country's biggest tourist resorts, has been the scene of a bloody turf war between rival drug cartels in recent years.

Turf war: Ciudad Juarez is a hotspot for drug cartel violence. More than 2,600 people were murdered in drug-related violence there in 2009